Beyond Endurance
by TorontoBatFan
Summary: "We'll do what we've always done...endure." Elizabeth Collins Stoddard once told David Collins. And she's always personified the ability to endure adversity and stress. But, what happens when she has to teach Carolyn, Victoria AND Barnabas how to drive? Has she reached the point beyond what even she can endure?


_Greetings, dear _Dark Shadows_ readers. I thought this was a story that simply had to be told. _

_How would Barnabas learn how to drive? And, as Carolyn is around sixteen, she'd be learning too. Plus, Victoria couldn't be excluded, now could she?_

_I just thought it would be a riot to see Elizabeth trying to cope with teaching them._

_I hope this didn't seem too rushed. I got to it when I got home and only spent a couple of hours on it._

_Reviews to me are like brandy for Elizabeth after a driving lesson. :-D_

_And awayyyy we go. :-D_

* * *

The voice of her nephew David resounded in Elizabeth Collins Stoddard's head.

"_What will we do now?" He asked as they watched Collinwood Manor burn._

"_We'll do what we've always done…endure." Elizabeth answered with determination_

And, as Elizabeth had been taught from childhood, endure was what the Collins family did. She'd typified that trait as she set an example for the family as they picked themselves up from the previous year's disaster. They'd rebuilt both their ancestral home and their cannery business. The rebuilt Collinwood was fast approaching completion and was proving nearly indistinguishable from the original. The Collins Cannery was achieving such success that it had actually the subject of an article in _Fortune_ about its amazing turnaround from just less than a year prior. (Of course not having a witch conspiring against them; and the fact that the Collins family now owned their main rival had made it comparatively simple.)

Yes, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard knew how to endure. All the Collins women knew how to endure. In fact, it could definitely be said that the true steel in the family ran in the blood of the women. The Collins men had an unfortunate tendency to be, well, foolish. Her own brother Roger was the perfect example of that. Elizabeth couldn't recall a single time in his life that her younger brother had actually taken real responsibility for something. So far as Elizabeth was concerned, David Collins, her nephew, was about the only good legacy her brother had. She and Barnabas were determined to see he was raised correctly. So far, they seemed to be succeeding. Even Barnabas admitted that he had acted foolishly –namely, with women- more than once both in his human life and his vampire life. (In fact, his foolish actions as a human were rather directly related to him now being a vampire.)

So, of all the things Elizabeth Collins Stoddard knew how to do –run a now successful cannery business, accept her daughter being a werewolf, adjust to having vampires living under her roof- her ability to endure was paramount.

But now, however, on this July evening in 1973, Elizabeth realized she was beyond what she could indeed endure.

"CAROLYN, LOOK OUT!" Elizabeth screamed at her daughter.

"What?" Came the nonchalant reply as Carolyn nudged the Chevy's steering wheel slightly to the right. As she did so, the transport truck roared past them in the opposite lane; the turbulence from its wake buffeting the smaller vehicle. "We had plenty of room."

"No we didn't!"

"Yeah, we did. He'd have blown his horn or something if he was actually going to hit us." Carolyn responded placidly as they continued down the darkening highway.

"THAT is what you're relying on: a trucker using his horn?"

"No" Carolyn said with a roll of her eyes. "I could see he was going to miss us. And he did. What's the big deal?"

Elizabeth bit down on her lip and dug her fingernails into the dashboard. From her point of view, they'd come within inches of disaster and her daughter wondered what the big deal was.

"Are you ok, mom? You look about as pale as Barnabas."

Elizabeth didn't trust herself to respond and simply shot her daughter a glare.

"We had plenty of room didn't we?" Carolyn asked the passengers in the back seat.

"I say, I can remember when this was but a dirt and stone path leading to Portland and Boston." Barnabas Collins rhapsodized from his place in the back seat, removing his sunglasses now that the sun had sunk beneath the pine trees lining the road.

"I wasn't watching." Victoria spoke from her place next to Barnabas. "I think we were alright though." She said in an attempt to placate Elizabeth.

"Carolyn, turn the wheel more gently as you around the curve!" Elizabeth said in a tight voice as the Collins family Chevy arced around a bend in the road.

"Mom, I thought the learner's manual said you're not supposed to upset the driver." Carolyn said in her usual deadpan manner.

"The driver isn't supposed to scare the passenger to death!" Elizabeth gasped back as they went over a dip that caused them to scoop air for a brief second. She glanced at her watch. The time was almost up. She exhaled visibly with relief. "Alright, pull over to the shoulder –GENTLY. It's Victoria's turn." The Collins family matriarch gasped through clenched teeth.

Carolyn complied and stopped the car at a wide shoulder and got out, switching places in the backseat with Victoria.

As the female vampire did a walk around the car –as the learner's manual dictated- Elizabeth took a deep breath in the passenger seat. She wondered again, just how it had come to this. Well, she knew the answer to that question. It was a combination of evil coincidence and process of elimination. She'd always known that Carolyn would have to be taught to drive when she reached sixteen. However, in her mind's eye she always had planned to disseminate (i.e. force) that task off to her brother Roger. But, Roger's departure from Collinwood and –seemingly- the family itself resulted in her having to take over the job. Elizabeth figured that she could handle teaching Carolyn to drive without TOO much danger/difficulty. But, just then Barnabas had decided that to be true man of the 20th Century he had to learn to operate a motoring carriage (his words). So, Elizabeth suddenly found herself having to coach two pupils. Before Elizabeth could totally process what that meant to her, Victoria pointed out that she'd never learned to drive either as she'd been in Windcliff Asylum throughout her teenage years. Unable to think of a valid excuse (beyond simply admitting the task was too much for her –anathema to a proud woman like Elizabeth), Victoria was added as a third pupil. Elizabeth wracked her brain as Victoria got in the car and adjusted the driver's seat, trying to think if there was anyone else who could have undertaken this job.

The cold truth was…there wasn't. Of the adults living in Collinwood, only she and Willie had a license to drive. And frankly, Willie was about the last person Elizabeth would trust to teach this supernatural trio of student drivers. Beyond the fact that Willie himself wasn't the greatest of drivers, he drank…a lot (he was about the only person she'd ever seen who was able to put Julia Hoffman under the table on St. Patrick's Day or New Year's Eve) and he tended to be too easily intimidated by Barnabas. (Sometimes he actually wound up being hypnotized by the vampire patriarch by accident. Elizabeth thought that simply could NOT be a good thing when teaching driving.) So…It was all up to her. But, right about now, Elizabeth was giving serious contemplation to whether or not the ghost of Laura Collins might somehow be able to do it instead of her. While Elizabeth recalled Laura having been a good driver in her life, the fact that she was bound to grounds of Collinwood and didn't seem to be able to communicate with anyone other than David, precluded her from the job. Of course, Laura was already dead…Elizabeth figured that could be a huge plus at this job, as she wouldn't be terrified of dying the way she was now. Naturally, if they lived in a big city, Elizabeth would have simply sent them all to a driving school. However, Collinsport had no such thing anywhere nearby. (As well, trying to arrange night only lessons for Barnabas and Victoria would have proved tricky)

Victoria started the car again and pulled off the shoulder onto the highway. Of the three, Victoria seemed to be the easiest to teach. She didn't have Carolyn's combination of nonchalance mixed with animal (due to her lycanthropy) emotion. Nor, did she get simply so amazed by the miracle of modern engineering that she forgot she was operating the said miracle of engineering…like Barnabas tended to do.

As Victoria coasted down the highway, she adjusted her rearview mirror slightly, and actually took a moment to stare again at the fact she cast no reflection back at her.

"Victoria, watch the road!" Elizabeth screeched.

"Oops. Sorry about that." The vampire responded as she set herself back to watching the road.

"How interesting" Barnabas spoke up from the backseat.

"What is?" Carolyn asked from beside him.

"I can actually see more out this side window, where it's completely dark, than I can out the front where it's lit by those headlights." Her uncle replied.

"I guess your vampire vision is better than the headlights." Carolyn mused. She herself had far better night vision than most people –even in her human form- but couldn't see nearly as well as vampires.

"My dear, do you think you can see the road ahead more clearly without those lights on?" Barnabas asked innocently.

"I don't know." Victoria responded as she reached for the console and pushed the knob in, shutting off the headlights. "Why, I can see everything perfectly." Victoria reported cheerfully.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, TURN THEM ON AGAIN!" Elizabeth screamed in terror from the passenger seat. Victoria complied and Elizabeth felt herself start to breathe again. Even though Victoria could see without the headlights, SHE could not…and that wasn't acceptable. As well, no other motorist could see them either –and that was equally unacceptable.

"Sorry about that, Elizabeth." Victoria said sheepishly. "I forgot"

"Please don't forget again." Elizabeth said through clenched teeth.

"This is so wonderful of you." Victoria said sheepishly. "When I was in Windcliff Asylum, I used to think of what it would be like to away from there…I'd be able to learn how to drive and do normal things. It was all so far away from my padded room."

Elizabeth took a deep cleansing breath and wondered just how far they were from Windcliff Asylum. She had a sneaking suspicion that she herself would wind up there, in a padded room, sooner or later, if her three students didn't take their licensing tests soon.

Victoria's time behind the wheel passed –luckily- without anymore further frights. She pulled into a rest area and Barnabas got behind the wheel. Victoria got into the backseat and promptly initiated a conversation with Carolyn regarding her burgeoning relationship with Joe Haskell. Ordinarily, Elizabeth might have been interested in listening to that…but at the moment she was trying to keep an eye on Barnabas as the vampire wrapped his long, while fingers around the steering wheel and pulled the Chevy out onto the road.

Barnabas turned the car onto a new route, following Elizabeth's directions. He glanced at a white sign on the roadside and promptly stomped down on the accelerator. The Chevy's engine roared and the vehicle roared ahead, pushing the occupants back into their seats.

"Barnabas, what the hell are you doing?" Elizabeth screamed from the passenger seat.

"Elizabeth, I am merely following what the sign said. It said I could do 117 until we reached Buxton."

"WHAT?"

"The white sign on the side of the road…" Barnabas stated calmly as he watched the speedometer creep higher"

"That was a sign saying we're on ROUTE 117 that takes us into Buxton!"

"Are you certain?" Barnabas asked placidly as Carolyn started laughing in the back seat and even Victoria began to giggle.

Elizabeth's wide-eyed reply was choked off by the sound of a police siren and red lights flashing behind them.

Later, Barnabas –now driving much slower- pulled the Chevy into main gate of Collinwood estate and along the wooded road leading to the great house.

"I fail to see what you're upset about, Elizabeth."

"You hypnotized a state trooper!"

"Yes, and it was either that or get one of those tickets he was ranting about. I must say, the constabulary for the state does seem to have rather irritable people working for them. He asked me a question and I answered him. He asked me where the fire was and I told him I was unaware of any conflagration in the vicinity, but I would gladly offer assistance if there was one nearby. I then pointed out that with those modern communicating devices he has in his car, he would certainly know the location of a fire before I would so if he led the way to the fire, we would follow…And you saw how upset he got at my offer to help." Barnabas pointed out reasonably.

"You can't just hypnotize people like that!"

"Why not? It certainly helped us resolve out the insurance claims when we rebuilt Collinwood." Barnabas replied, making reference to the fact that his influence had led the members of the Angel Bay Cannery Board of Director to officially confess that the fire which destroyed the old Collinwood had been deliberately set by Angelique Bouchard (and that was actually a true, if incomplete statement) as a part of the same corporate sabotage that had led them to destroy the Collins Cannery building. As a result –and after a similar 'chat' with some executives from Angelique's insurance company, the cost of rebuilding both Collinwood and the cannery had been completely picked up by Angelique's insurance company. "They didn't even raise our rates." Barnabas pointed out proudly. "But, that is of no accord. That state constable seemed completely irrational about my offer to help. And, when he asked me if I was 'a wise guy', I merely replied that I considered myself rather intelligent and well read…and he got all excited again. Why we'd have been there all night debating with him if I hadn't hypnotized him. It's a good thing he seemed to be mistaken about there being a fire nearby, as he delayed us far too long to render any assistance." Barnabas pointed out reasonably. (He'd driven around the area, for about fifteen minutes, searching for the fire the state trooper had apparently been looking for, before deciding the man had to have been mistaken and set out for home.)

In the back seat, Carolyn squirmed in near agony. She was trying to control her laughter at Barnabas' words. The only thing restraining her was the fact that her mother looked like she was close to freaking out…and not freaking back in again. She was pale, her pupils seemed to be dilated and a vein appeared to be throbbing on her forehead. As funny as this was, she didn't want her mother to have a seizure or something.

Barnabas stopped the car in the carport and the three pupils got out. As they walked up the front door of Collinwood, David came to greet them.

"Did you drive far?" He asked.

"Oh, we got about." Barnabas reported with satisfaction. "Oh, did the local news report anything of a fire towards Buxton? We met a policeman who seemed most anxious to find it."

"No, I didn't see anything. You're back just in time. The show's coming on." David told his uncle happily as he led him towards the television set. Carolyn went off to the kitchen to get something to eat and Victoria went with her, as they resumed their conversation about Joe Haskell. Once in the kitchen, Carolyn's gales of laughter could be heard as she clearly could hold it in no longer once she thought again about Barnabas' encounter with the Maine state trooper.

"Ah, what perfect timing; I am most looking forward to this evening's installment. Perhaps tonight, that Gilligan chap can find a way off of that dreadful island." Barnabas said as he sat down in front of the set.

In the meantime, Elizabeth had shakily walked in through the front door of the mansion. Willie saw her and dashed into the dining room, promptly returning with a snifter of brandy.

"How was it, Mrs. Stoddard?" The estate caretaker asked.

"My life flashed before my eyes more times than I could count tonight, Willie." Elizabeth said as she took a soothing drink of brandy. "Something occurred to me as well."

"What?"

"I'm the only one in danger, you know. Barnabas and Victoria are vampires. They're pretty much indestructible. Carolyn's being a werewolf makes her the same. I'm the only one who'd get hurt in an accident." Elizabeth said numbly as she took another drink of the liquor. She walked into her study and sat heavily down behind her desk. Everytime she tried teaching the three supernatural members of her family the most mortal of skills, she felt a desire to kiss the floor as she was so glad to have reached home safely again.

"Do you want another glass?" Willie asked, as he pointed to her now almost empty snifter.

"No, I'd like you to bring the decanter in, if you please Willie." Elizabeth said as she felt herself start to unwind by slow inches.

"Oh ayuh, I'll be right back." Willie said, as he turned back towards the dining room and its liquor cabinet.

Elizabeth reached for a hidden button on the wall. She pressed it and a hidden door swung open, revealing her macramé materials. She sighed as she started to remove them. Following a driving lesson, some strong liquor and working with her macramé always proved to be about the only thing that restored her nerves to a normal state. She was a Collins woman, she reminded herself; she would endure this. Elizabeth sighed heavily. She hoped that the three of them would be able to get their licenses soon though, as she realized that sooner or later, she'd bypass her endurance. Maybe Barnabas could hypnotize the testers. She didn't like that idea…but her having a total nervous breakdown was something she'd like even less.


End file.
